Saturday 27th August 2005
Song: Easyworld - 'Til The Day
Today's been quite good... Early aftrenoon I head off to Frimley to see Rob. Was a bit weary that I'd get lost, but made it to the pub by his house and was happy... but then I didn't know where his house was. Anyway, was there a couple of hours. Learned that polar bears aren't white, and that someone actually has a smaller room than me. I then left with a DVD player and mobile phone. Not a bad visit.
Get home, fiddling with new phone, and Marc calls. He's at St. Peters' Hospital, could I come and pick him up. So there was the next test for the day: Do I know how to get to St. Peters' Hospital? Amazingly, I actually managed to get there without taking any wrong turnings or getting in any wrong lanes. Maybe I am actually starting to be able to learn routes.
Tonight am apparently going to Ben's house with Marc for drink and light hearted banter. Tomorrow I'm going to be standing in a field in Sussex all day.
For those who care (no one) I recently bought a Ultra 10 (computer made by Sun) from ebay. Wasted a whole evening trying to get the screen to actually come on. OBP kicks any PC's BIOS menu's arse all over town. Fortunately I was able to get a keyboard and mouse for it from work. I'm considering using it as the webserver for this site. But I've got a few things to learn about Solaris 10 first. A cool thing about working for Sun (aside from the foosball), is that I have no doubt that any question I have about this thing can be answered within a day. Good stuff.
Friday 26th August 2005
Thought this was good... a pamphlet on "blog depression". Do read if you like to blog.
Wednesday 24th August 2005
Song: Nirvana - Lithium
I had a dream about Andrea last night (don't worry, nothing rude!). She was living up in the London area and I'd gone to visit her, and then we went off into London to meet up with Mary for a gig. Random.
Google have launched a service called Google Talk. This pleases me greatly. Yes, I like Google as much as the next guy, but there's more to it than this. They're now doing this IM service which is basically just Jabber (*rejoices!*). I thought the day would never come when a huge company pushes Jabber. Apple missed their chance when they went with AIM.
So kids, head over to Google Talk. Download the client, and start using it. Get all your friends to use it. Even if you don't know why, just trust me that it's better than using MSN. Here's a list:
- Less things will go wrong for no reason
- File transfers will work properly and reliably everytime
- You're not tied down to using a horrible program that's covered in adverts
- Uses an open protocol (HTTP, HTML, FTP - Ever known these to randomly stop working?)
- XML based
- Google, not Microsoft
- Prevents you from going to Hell
Okay so I'm running out of points. But seriously... start using it! I'm sure I've not really convinced anyone here, but nevermind. Just download it, log in with your GMail (Google) info, and enjoy.
If *anyone* actually does use this, leave me a comment and I'll add them to my list and we can uh... chat. I don't actually have a computer running Windows anymore, so if anyone does try the Google program for it, let me know what it's like. :)
Oh, also! I'm >99% sure I'll be able to use this from work. so there's an incentive (I hope, anyway)!
Wednesday 17th August 2005
Song: Lacuna Coil - Heaven's A Lie
Today has been a bad day... Got woken up at 1:40am by the police calling us. Then, the traffic to work was awful. Took me 90 minutes where it normally takes 20 (I got in to work at 10am). While sitting in the traffic, some fucking stupid white van man managed to reverse into me. I stupidly didn't get out immediately and look at how bad it was.
I had a very quick look when I got to work and it doesn't look too bad. Just scratched the bumper. Going to give it a thorough look tonight after it's been cleaned. I pray it doesn't need a new bumper. :(
Thursday 11th August 2005
Song: Snake River Conspiracy - Act Your Age
I've always thought cats were pretty cool... but now I think they're cooler than ever before. Click on the link: Stuff On My Cat.
They're so cute!
Monday 8th August 2005
Just an update for those who're interested (and just because I want to make the point): The CD I bought with this wonderful "copy protection" is now back in my CD pile where it will stay... however, the MP3s of it are now on my iPod playing happily away to me as I write this. They are also on my main computer at home where they will be listened to since the CD fails.
So in conclusion: copy protection sucks. All it does is force me to copy the CDs to MP3s before I can listen to them. Thanks EMI.
Sunday 7th August 2005
Warning: The following joke is potentially quite racist. If such topics may offend you, do not read on.
A white guy is walking along a beach when he comes across a lamp partially buried in the sand. He picks up the lamp and gives it a rub.
Two blonde genies appear, and they tell him he has been granted three wishes. The guy makes his three wishes and the blonde genies
disappear.
The next thing the guy knows, he's in a bedroom, in a mansion surrounded by 50 beautiful women. He makes love to all of them and begins to explore the house.
Suddenly he feels something soft under his feet, he looks down and the floor is covered in $1,000 bills.
Then, there's a knock at the door. He answers it and standing there are two persons dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits. They drag him outside to the nearest tree, throw a rope over a limb and hang him by the neck until he's dead.
As the Klansmen are walking away, they remove their hoods; it's the two blonde genies. One blonde genie says to the other one, "I can understand the first wish having all these beautiful women in a big mansion to make love to. I can also understand him wanting to be a millionaire but why he wanted to be hung like a black man is beyond me.
Sunday 7th August 2005
Song: Marilyn Manson - Coma White
ugh, very annoyed... I've just been in to Woking, and bought a Lene Marlin album, a Bill Baily DVD, and a Joss Stone album. Was listening to Joss Stone in the car on the way home, and thought it was pretty good... better than her first. So I was all happy and stuff, then as I'm putting the CD back in the case once I was home, I noticed it: "This disc contains Copy Control Technology" Arrgh!
So then, I got angry. Some of you may recall a year or so ago I bought an album by Cave In which gave me a lot of hassle. I tried a lot of things to no avail. I ended up writing a small cdplayer program to read it, with success. The only problem was the TOC (table of contents) was FUBAR so I couldn't skip tracks. Anyway, after several days of anger, I did eventually manage to play it.... The solution to the copy protection: copy the CD.
Yes indeed, that CD never has been played properly on my computer. However, the MP3s I made of it have never missed a beat. Ironic, no?
Now all I've got to do is try to remember how I copied it...
Sunday 7th August 2005
Song: Lebe Marlin - Sitting Down Here
Just seen Lene Marlin on TV with a new single. She looks a bit "pretty", but none the less seemed to be playing a song not too unlike her previous efforts and playing guitar and stuff. I've just checked, and apparently it was 1998 that her first single (Unforgivale Sinnger) came out. Seven years, sounds like a heck of a long time, but eh. Nice to see her back anyway. :)
I see Within Temptation have a song on Kerrang's playlist thing. Hope they don't get all popular now and come out with labels like "The new Evanescence", or "Evanescence but darker" or anything stupid like that.
Friday was a pretty good day. Got in to work about 8:45 as usual, at 9:30 I went to a presentation on D-Trace (very interesting indeed), that finished around 12. At 12:30, we go off for a pub lunch. Get back around 2pm. :)
Then, around 7:30 that night, Rob came round with his laptop. The last week or so has seen him trying to get Linux installed on there. Well that's not so hard... but getting his PCMCIA wireless network card however proved to be quite a challlenge. Anyway... Just before 10 we popped out to Woking to look for a Bill Bailey DVD (opinions, anyone?) in Blockbuster, no luck. We then tried Sainsbury's, no luck there either. So we returned home and cracked on with it. By about 2:30am (Christ, I've just realised that's seven hours) it was working. I got in to bed about 3am. At 9am... I was woken up again, as I was being dragged into Reading for what I was told was going to be a very quick trip. Anyway, once we were all ready it was about 10:30 by the time we left the house for this short trip. At 5pm (ugh) we came home. Whole day wasted, and I was completely knackered. Alas.
Now I'm bored and want Lene Marlin's album.
Monday 1st August 2005
Last night was quite nice. Went out for a quiet drink with Matt and Tonie, though it was a bit late. None the less, it was nice... I did something hugely stupid which, if nothing else, provided some light entertainment at my expense. Yeah, anyway that was about all I did all weekend so it was quite nice to get out for a bit.
Oh, on Friday night I went to Pizza Hut with Matt, Marc, Daniel, and Tor. I came home with a pink balloon. I think that speaks for itself. The only downer to it was that I had to start singing happy birthday to myself as everyone else seemed reluctant to get going. Though with that said, once they were off, it was fine. A few people looked around and apparently one person clapped. But I was just wondering if I was supposed to be ashamed or not by having a table of people singing (badly) to me while I have a pink balloon tied round my wrist.
I believe you work for Fujitsu, Andrea. I recently found out that Fujitsu and Sun (who I work for) have struck some sort of business deal. This probably isn't interesting... but none the less it made me think of you and also made me wonder... What actually do Fujitsu do? I understand they're the third larget computer company in the world (who's above them, IBM and..?) but I still don't really have a clue what they do. But apparently, they do make SPARC processors which they sell to Sun. *shrugs*
Oh there's a foosball table at work, and today I had a game of foosball for the first time ever. My experience was demonstrated by my performance, I feel (much like my volleyball performance). If nothing else comes of it, I hope my year of "working" helps me become a better foosball player.
Uh, I need to go now as my bed isn't made and I'm supposed to be asleep in it by now.